The approaches described in this section could be pursued, but are not necessarily approaches that have been previously conceived or pursued. Therefore, unless otherwise indicated herein, the approaches described in this section are not prior art to the claims in this application and are not admitted to be prior art by inclusion in this section.
Many computing applications, such as document viewing applications, were initially developed without networking or security capabilities in mind, and thus without particular network security mechanisms. As these applications were enhanced with networking capabilities, such as document sharing, on-line collaboration, and interfacing with remote databases, inherently insecure mechanisms have been incorporated into workflows. As security vulnerabilities were being discovered, these computing applications have been enhanced, now with network security features, such as, for example, a feature preventing access to a server by an electronic document without specific security settings identifying the server as a known network entity. These security restrictions, in some cases, may interfere with existing workflows and may require a user to manually reconfigure security setting.
Some existing computing applications provide a feature that alerts a user whenever a requested operation poses a potential security threat and permits the user to explicitly confirm that such operation is to proceed. In reality, however, a user may not always be in a position to determine with certainty the degree of a potential security threat associated with the requested operation. Consequently, users often respond to the security alerts by simply clicking on the “OK” button presented by the alert window.